The Sunset on a Different Side: Rewrite
by Dallas Lover734
Summary: Alright, so I basically took the advice from the people who reviewed the original version, and used what they told me. So thanks to those who helped out!
1. Chapter 1

1 I listened to our track coach go on and on about next weeks big track meet. I sighed heavily, waiting for it to be over. I like running. Not sitting and listen to someone talk about running.

".... and we have a new track member joining us today." The coach said. My attention turned to a scrawny, blonde haired boy, who looked about my age.

"Everyone this is Matthew Santiago. Matthew just moved here from Connecticut. Matthew, I hope you gt used to waking up early. And get used to your team mates too." Then the coach talked to Matthew for a bit, and explained the rules to him, and all that junk. He did that for me when I joined.

My ears perked up when I heard some greasers next to me talking, and asking my opinion.

"Ponyboy, what do you think of the new kid?" I just shrugged, and let them keep talking. I didn't have a right to judge, because I don't even know him.

"He's from Connecticut. Home to the rich and snooty. No duh he's one of those damn Socs." A kid named Joey said next to me. He probably is a Soc. I looked at his shoes, and they where clean and white. I decided that he is a Soc.

"Ponyboy Curtis!" My coach called for me. He doesn't really like. Because I'm a greaser, and he's a Soc. The only reason he keeps me on this team, is because I'm the fastest runner, so we usually win every track meet.

"Curtis, I want you to help Matthew here, teach him the rules, get him used to the warm ups and all that. Understand? I want him to participate in the track meet next week." I nodded, and the coach left me alone with Matthew.

Have you ever been in a situation where the silence is so loud, it's embarrassing? Yeah well, that's how it kinda is right now. I stared at Matthew for so long, I think he squirmed a bit. Gee, he sure is a pansy for a Soc.

"Uh, what's your name again?," he asked. He seemed a little scared to be around me.

"Ponyboy." I said, with out any feeling in my voice. He nodded, and looked around, like he was waiting for something.

"Ponyboy, can you teach me the warm ups?" His voice sounded different from the rest of us. More clean.

"Yeah sure."

I taught him all the warm ups, and then I bought out a timer, and clipped it to my shorts waist band. I set the timer, and we both took off for a mile.

He's not bad. He was able to keep up with me for most of the time, but he would fall back every once and awhile. But then he would catch up again. I finished our mile in six minutes and 38 seconds. Matthew finished his in 6 minutes and 46 seconds.

The coach seemed impressed. So did the other Socs. But the rest of us greasers were pissed that he was catching up to my time.

"Pony, we where thinking of jumping that new kid after school today. Teach him a lesson. So he'll know who to mess with and who not to mess with. You in?" Joey asked.

I actually had to think about it. I don't really like the kid. But I don't want to jump him and sink to the Socs level. Especially after what happened with Johnny and all.

"No thanks Joey, my brother wants me home early today."

"Oh alright."

Joey and the others walked out of the dressing room. I'm glad they had talked quiet though, because Matthew was still here. I finished taking a shower, got dressed, grabbed my school stuff, and was heading out of the locker room, when someone called me.

"Ponyboy." I spun around and saw Matthew.

"What do you want?" I asked trying to act tough.

"I, uh, just wanted to say thank you for helping with the track team today." Wow. Talk about Miss Manners.

"Your Welcome."

I said it so cold, it even scared me. I walked away, and headed for my locker.

Matthew's POV

I really don't like it here. I've tried to be nice to everyone, and I even said thank you to a guy who had so much grease in his hair you wouldn't believe it. But everyone keeps blowing me off. One guy even gave me the finger. I'm not sure what I did. I mean I'm new here. I couldn't of done anything wrong already, right?

"Good morning class." I looked up and saw a balding man sitting at a desk. I guess I'd been so lost in my thoughts, I didn't notice the teacher coming in.

He took out a paper and started doing attendance.

"Joey Alec, Ponyboy Curtis...."

I looked up from my paper, and saw Ponyboy sitting a few desks away from me. He had seemed nice at first. But he treated me like dirt too. I guess I'll just have to try harder if I want friends here.

I saw some guys sitting in the back who where starting to smoke. What? We never did this in Connecticut. They looked like hoods. They were wearing leather jackets, and plenty of hair grease. One caught my eye and stuck his middle finger up at me.

I grimaced and turned away. Gee, thanks mom and dad you basically just stuck your son in an asylum for hoods.

I worked through my classes, and soon found out that I'm in all the same classes with Ponyboy, except for gym. We basically didn't need to take gym because we're on the track team, but I decided to take it.

I'm not really great in math though. I was wishing I was when the teacher asked for Ponyboy and me to stay with her after class. Of course she announced it in front of the whole class, so some hood looking guys snickered at me, and some guys who I had seen in my neighborhood snickered at Ponyboy.

Ponyboy just glared at me, and I glared right back. I was going to have to start standing up for myself sooner or later.

I struggled through most of the math problems, trying to figure what xy = 16 x 29 - 30 equals. I ended up getting it wrong, when the teacher answered the question for us. It must of been an easy one, because she said it like it was supposed to be obvious.

The bell rang. But I wasn't going to my locker, and getting my stuff, and getting ready to walk home. No I had to stay after with a stuck up hood and a slut of a teacher. I tried figuring out why she wanted to teach, because she really did look like Malibu Barbie. Plus she was were a red dress that went up to her thighs, and like five inched heels.

"Mr. Curtis, I assume you have already met Mr. Santiago," he nodded.

"Good then. Previous records of shown you doing poorly in math dear." She said this while looking at me. I nodded.

"While Mr. Curtis is my best student, and he will be tutoring you for the next few weeks, or until you feel comfortable with math." She smiled at me, but my whole face went pale. Great. More alone time with him now. I bet he was thinking the same thing because he looked about as angry as I was about it. But we knew better than to argue with our teacher.

"Tomorrow, Mr. Curtis, you and Matthew will be staying after school, and I will giving you the supplies you need to give him and extra boost in math." She gave us both a sly smile and dismissed us.

I went to my locker, and did my combination, but the freaking thing wouldn't open. So I kept trying, until some kid next to me offered to help. I couldn't believe he was offering. He was one of those hoods. He looked to old to be in high school though.

He opened my locker with a paper clip he had un raveled.

"There you go kid." He said.

"Thanks." I shoved my books into my locker, and took out the books I did need, and my sweater.

"Hey, are you new here?" He asked. I nodded.

"Well I'm Keith but everyone calls me Two-Bit. What about you?"

"Matthew." I was scared to be talking to him. He was a hood, and I've heard about getting jumped before, and I wasn't itching to have it happen to me in a school hallway.

"Nice to meet ya kid. See ya later." I said goodbye to him, and he left the school building, even though they hadn't dismissed anyone yet.

Of course I was walking home. Bad idea. I figured it was bad, when I saw a few boys from my track team following me. I was getting nervous, so I walked faster. I turned down an alley, thinking it was a short cut, but realized it wasn't when I saw a barbed wire fence. I turned to go back, the boys closed off the exit to the alley.

I swallowed hard, hoping someone would drive by and see me cornered.

One of them got close to me, and hit me right in the nose. I fell backwards, and my head scraped against the wire. One of them sat on top of, which knocked every last piece of breath out of me. I tried to suck in air but only started gasping and coughing for help.

I was able to get enough air in me to start screaming until someone shoved a rag in my mouth and kicked me in the head. I saw stars spinning around me and I tried to fight off the blackness that was surrounding me.

"Hey, what are you doin'?!" A voice called out. I tried to sit up, but someone grabbed my arms, and shoved my chest back down. So I just listened to the guys arguing. One voice sounded familiar. Ponyboy.

"Listen, I gotta tutor the kid tomorrow, and this is how I'm gettin' my extra credit."

"Oh. Sorry man. We didn't know this would be affecting your grade." A few of them snickered at Joey's comment.

"Shut your mouth Joey. I've got Dallas Winston waiting for me over, and I can call him in for back up any minute."

There was silence, and then they all started getting off of me. I heard feet pounding down the alley. Than I saw Ponyboy's face hovering over me. He took the rag out of my mouth, and helped me stand up.

"You alright?" He was being pretty nice to guy he didn't like. I nodded, and wiped some blood off of my lip. I picked up my bag, and started gathering all my books that lay scattered on the ground.

"Here." I lifted my head to see Ponyboy handing me a handkerchief.

"Thanks," I mumbled, and took it. I wiped some blood off of my throat where the blade had dug in, and tried to stop the blood from pouring out of nose.

"Are you sure that you're okay with walking home alone?" Ponyboy sure did seem worried.

"Yeah I'll be fine." Ponyboy started walking away.

"Uh, wait! Ponyboy!" I called. He turned around.

"What?"

"Thanks for, uh, everything." It wasn't my most sincere thank you, but I think I owed him that.

"Your Welcome."

So the people who reviewed my first story of this, thank you. I took your advice, and decided to rewrite it. So thank you, and please tell me if you think I did a better job on this, and if I should continue. Thank you!


	2. Chapter 2

1Matt's POV

After getting jumped today, I immediately got on a bus, and got driven home. I wasn't itching to get home though. My parents would get all worried, but my brother.... Let's just say that he doesn't really like me. Everyone on the bus were giving me weird looks. Probably because I was still bleeding. I wiped some of blood off, and walked down my side walk to my house. It was pretty big, with nice, tall white, freshly painted fences. The house was white with green shutters. 5 windows upstairs, and 3 downstairs. I looked around at all the other houses. They all looked different, but just as big.

I opened the picket fence, and locked it closed. I winced thinking of how worried and over protective my parents were going to be. And how my brother would tease me later. I took a deep breath, and walked up the stairs, and opened the front door.

"Matty, is that you?" I looked up, and saw my mom at the counter, cooking dinner. "Yeah mom, it's me." She looked up, and the smile from her face fell. "Oh my God, what happened?" She squeaked, she took my bag and my books away from me, and set them on the table. She put her hands on the sides of my face, and looked at me. "Luke, get your brother some rubbing alcohol, a cold cloth, and some aspirin!" My mom waited at the foot of the stairs, and Luke handed her the stuff. He gave me sneer, and pushed past me while he went outside to go play football.

I winced while she dabbed at the cuts, and put a band-aid on a deep gash. She fussed over me for awhile, until I finally told her that I was fine, and started doing my homework. I struggled through math. Why is this so hard for me? I made A's in everything else, but math. Thanks to that, I now have Ponyboy as my tutor. Plus, he hates me. Then I thought about what had happened today. How he had saved me, and then been so kind to me. I just didn't get it. Maybe he just needed the extra credit, or he wanted to show off how tough he is. I almost fell asleep over my homework, trying to figure it out.

I didn't want to go to bed. I was tired, but then my brother would come in. My brother....... he's hard to explain. When we was ten, and I was seven, and started drinking alcohol and doing drugs. My parents noticed, but didn't make a big deal out of it. That's why he must hate me so much. Because they'll make a fuss over me, but not over him. Maybe because I was the baby. I use to have a little sister. But she went missing a year ago.

I shut the door to my bed room, and tried to sleep. It's hard to sleep though when you hear your brother and your parents arguing all night.

Ponyboy's POV

I was not happy with tutoring Matt. And I kept asking myself why I was such and idiot and saved Matthew. I saved a Soc. God I'm stupid. Plus, Darry and I got into another fight last night about my grades. I'm slipping in Social Studies. My stupid teacher even called Darry. Soda wasn't to happy either. Usually he sticks up for me, but he didn't last night.

Johnny had to walk me to school this morning. I missed the bus, and Darry and Soda had to get to work. So Johnny just came to school late with me. "Did I hear that you saved a Soc yesterday?,"Johnny asked. I sighed heavily. "Yeah I did. Just don't give me a hard time about it okay?" He nodded. We walked to school in silence. We checked ourselves into the office, and then we took off to our second period classes. Of course that's Social Studies, and I had it with Matthew. Great.

I took my seat in the back with Curly, who was smoking, and hiding it every time that the teacher turned around. It made me laugh. Matthew sat in the front, and Curly kept trying to flick his ashes at him. I laughed, but my heart sank with shame. He never did anything to me. Why should I pick on him?

Because he's a Soc.

My teacher kept me after class. "Ponyboy, I need you to bring your grade up in this class or, you are going to get a C. Just find a way to help bring it up, and I'll give you a B." I nodded, and left. At least she didn't give me a tutor.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I met Matthew after school in the math class. I took out the teachers book that the math teacher had given me, and she had circled Matthew's weak points. I took out my notes and some work sheets.

"Here, I want you to try this, and give it to me when you are done." Matthew nodded, and took the paper. He worked hard on it. But he didn't seem to get it. He furrowed his brow together, and would take a few minutes to get each question. He really did struggle though. I bet he feels the way I do when I'm doing Social Studies.

"Here." Matthew slid the paper back to me. I looked it over. He had gotten all the easy ones right. But it looked like he needed help with ratios and percents. I circled the ones that he got wrong, and tried to show what to do instead. I handed the paper back to him, and gave him a new one to try.

He looked back and forth at each paper, checking his mistakes. "Pony?" I was startled out of my thoughts to hear Matthew. "Yeah?"

"I don't get this part." He pointed out question seven to me.

"You have to cross multiply. You know how to do that right?" He nodded, and showed me. He just couldn't make it to the next step. "Alright, how much does five times six equal?" He looked down at his paper. "Thirty."

"Yeah. How much does seven times ten equal?" He seemed to be getting it. "Seventy." I nodded. "So are they equal?" He shook his head no. "Exactly. That's how you find if the are equivalent or not. And that's also how you tell if triangles are similar." I watched him suddenly understand. "Thanks Pony." I smiled a bit at this.

"No problem."


End file.
